Municipal refuse consists of garbage, rubbish, ashes, street sweepings, stable refuse, offal or market refuse, dead animals, and industrial refuse (including waste building materials). The first three classes constitute the principal part of municipal refuse.
The present invention relates to a process for the oxidation of municipal refuse and to restructure the residues into environmentally safe marketable products, e.g., solid or liquid carbon dioxide, pure water and glass like materials.
Disposal of municipal refuse is a serious problem confronting societies throughout the world today. The greatest percentage of municipal refuse is disposed of by recycling, incineration and landfills. Such attempts are noble, but have been virtually unsuccessful in addressing the ultimate solution; no requirements for landfills and/or sewers. By-in-large, incineration destroys a wide variety of refuse materials, but in the process produces substantial volumes of solid and gaseous residues which are respectively deposited into landfills or escape into the atmosphere.
The need for proper and cost effective disposal of municipal refuse is an accepted reality. Although efforts, to date, have provided a limited means of refuse disposal, more stringent environmental controls and economic feasibility has substantially reduced their viability. Landfills, for example, have historically evolved from simple individual disposal to massive municipal disposal sites. Despite current efforts, the ever increasing volume of municipal refuse has resulted in substantial land commitments and costly landfills. Today, the development of landfill areas has soared to an estimated cost of approximately $750,000 per acre in some geographical areas. Such undesirable land use and costs coupled with staggering volumes of municipal refuse identifies the need for the present invention.
Therefore, it is the primary objective of the present invention to provide a process capable of completely oxidizing large volumes of municipal refuse thereby requiring no landfills or sewers.
It is a particular objective of this invention to provide a disposal process capable of using certain hazardous waste in conjunction with the oxidation of municipal refuse.
It is another objective of this invention to provide a process for complete oxidation of all volatile materials by using pure oxygen as an oxidant.
It is still another objective of this invention to provide a refuse disposal process capable of eliminating carbonaceous materials.
It is yet another objective of this invention to be used in conjunction with a closed facility design which will prevent escape of gases or liquids into the environment.
It is a further objective of this invention to provide a subsequent process which utilizes the high energy content, derived from the process, to sustain the energy needs of the site facilities.
It is still a further objective of this invention to provide a subsequent process whereby liquid residues will be restructured into environmentally safe marketable products.
It is yet a further objective of this invention to provide a subsequent process whereby gaseous residues will be compressed, cooled, and fractionated into environmentally safe marketable products.
These and other objectives of the present invention will be more fully disclosed in the detailed specification in conjunction with the accompanying block diagram drawing; FIG. 1.